CES 2018: the most interesting gadgets announced

January 13, 2018

A look back at all the interesting new technologies that saw the light of day at CES 2018.
“From rollable televisions to under-screen fingerprint scanners, CES 2018 brought a whole lot of interesting technology”The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas has been the hotspot for new and interesting technology during the past week. From mammoth modular televisions to smart refrigerators, from laptop docks to rollable TVs, and from under-screen fingerprint scanners to smart displays, the event has witnessed a plethora of exciting new technology. And now that the event is finally wrapping up, we thought we’d take a look back at all themost interesting new tech and gadgets thatwere announced at the event. Let’s get started.CES often plays host to groundbreaking new technologies in the television industry… and this year was no different. South Korean giant LG showcased a 65-inch OLED television whichcan be rolled up and hidden when not in use. Not only will it be easier to transport, but it will also add a minimalistic look to the user’s room when not being used. Additionally, the display can be rolled up partially in preset settings to offer different aspect ratios and screen sizes.Imagine listening to calls through your finger. That’s exactly what the Sgnl smart strap from Innomdle Lab makes possible. It connects to your phone via Bluetooth and allows you to listen to phone calls by conducting the messages through the tip of your finger to your ear. All you need to do is touch your ear with your finger, and you’ll be able to hear theaudio and respond. Meanwhile, a microphone on the strap allows you to talk back to the caller. It can also notify you of incoming calls, track health metrics and even call up to five contacts without the need topull out your smartphone.Samsung’s new entry in the television segment included an enormous 146-inch modular TV, aptly dubbed ‘ The Wall ‘. While the device is still in the conceptual stage, itmanagedto fascinate quite a few. That’s because it uses a special self-emitting panel which uses MicroLED technology, thereby resulting in OLED-like deep blacks, as well as a peak brightness of 2,000 nits. But the main highlight here is that the TV is supposed to be modular, and might allow several modules to change screen size. That said, Samsung did not reveal much about the modulartechnology of the TV as of yet. Whatit did reveal however, is that most of its 2018 range of TVs will come with built-in Bixby support.We’ve seen smart refrigerators before, but the InstaView ThinQ smart refrigerator from LG is a little different. On the outside, the fridge features a 29-inch touchscreen that can show you what’s inside by turning transparent when you knock on it twice. Meanwhile, you can tag food with virtual stickers, get reminders about food expiration datesand evenview what’s inside your fridge remotely, thanks to LG’s webOS and Amazon’s Alexa. What’s more, the tech giant touted how its ThinQ kitchen gadgets may be able to communicate to make tasks easier. For example, your smart ovencould follow step-by-step instructionsprovided by a recipe app on your refrigerator. How cool is that?Razer’s Project Linda is a concept that is not new, but it has been a hot topic since quite a while now. The device is a laptop dock for the Razer phone, and is made with a unibody CNC aluminium chassis which is just 15mm thin. Once the smartphone is docked, it can be used as a touchpad, or as a secondary display. The dock itself ships with a 13.3-inch QHD touchscreen display with a refresh rate of 120Hz, as well as a built-in RGB keyboard and some additional ports. Fuelling the device is a 53.6Wh internal battery, which can also double up as a power bank for the smartphone.Google has introduced the Smart Display platform, which allows its Assistant to be used on smart home speakers with tablet-like displays. Google has partnered with big brands like JBL, LG, Lenovo and Sony for such devices. In fact, these ‘smart displays’ will also have Cast functionality built-in, meaning you could watch videos from YouTube, make video calls with Google Duo, and even search for images from Google Photos. Meanwhile, Lenovo has already unveiled its first smart home device called the Lenovo Smart Display, which comes in 8-inch and 10-inch screen sizes.The Lenovo Mirage Solo Daydream VR headset is the result of Google’s plans to partner with Lenovo to build standalone VR headsets. The VR headset is backed by a 5.5-inch QHD display, Snapdragon 835 SoC, 4GB of RAM and up to seven hours of battery life. It is also the first device to flaunt Google’s WorldSense technology. Thanks to the new tech, you will be able to move around and explore virtual environments as if you’reactually there. Google has also went ahead and introduced a new Blade Runner game for the wearable. Meanwhile, YI technology also announced the YI Horizon VR180 camera in collaboration with Google, paving the way for stereoscopic 3D cameras for high resolution videos.The one announcement everyone was waiting for was a smartphone with an under-display fingerprint scanner, and Vivo obliged. The smartphone, which doesn’t have an official name yet, comes with an optical Synaptic fingerprint sensor placed between the top glass layer and the OLED panel of the display. At an unlock speed of 0.7 seconds, the sensor is slower than other capacitive fingerprint sensors in use right now, which come with unlocking speeds as fast as 0.2 seconds. That said, the technology is only expected to improve and reach more devices in the future.And that’s not all. New devices like the Nokia sleep which offers impressive sleep tracking also made some headlines at CES this year. Which is of these new technologies do you think is the most interesting? Drop a comment below and let us know.